Symbols of the Unknown

Chapter Three: Electric

Rather than driving back to the school, the trio decided to go to one of the remote locations Rachel had found, and as they approached, Robert couldn't believe his eyes. They turned onto the road where his accident occurred five years ago. As he tensed up, he felt a hand squeeze his shoulder. He looked over and made eye contact with Gabriel. "Do you need me to take this one Chief?" Gabe asked, knowing what this place meant to him. Gritting his teeth, Rob shook his head. "I'll be fine, just watch my back," he replied grimly.

They arrived at the site of the tragedy a couple minutes later, and Robert looked at the large cross he had put up in Elizabeth's memory. Part of him just wanted to leave all this behind, and get as far as he could from this particular spot. Nevertheless, he got out of the vehicle and followed closely behind Rachel, but not before stealing one last glance at the cross.

Roughly 20 yards into the grass off the road, there was another symbol, similar to the other one, but this one had a more square look to the background lines. There was even more crackling in the air above this one, but the one at the school could have theoretically gotten worse as well after the lightning strikes. Robert bent down to inspect the symbol, and noticed that the ground seemed to be humming, but only from the singed areas. Before he could think any further, Rachel broke his line of thought.
"You feel it too, don't you?" She asked, with a worried look on her face.

"Yeah, any ideas as to what's causing it?" Rob replied.

"Do I look like an expert on strange symbols that lightning randomly strikes to you?"

"Well, you look more like one than us with that sketchbook and the crazy hair," Gabe quipped.

"Shut up, there's a lot of static electricity in the air, I can't do anything about it," she snapped.

"Gabe has a point you know," Rob chimed in.

"I already said, there's stati--" Rachel started.

"Not on that, I mean, you've been to all the locations and sketched out the symbols, how did you even find them? This isn't exactly something you notice while walking down the road," both Rob and Gabe were not eyeing her suspiciously.

"I like to fly drones, that's all. I was flying one last night when the feed cut out, when it came on there were two symbols in view in town, so I flew it around some more, and found even more in and around town," she answered, seeming annoyed. That was good enough for Robert, and Gabriel seemed satisfied as well.

They continued looking around for a minute, and Rob realized just how out of his scope this was. He had zero clue what to do from here. He just figured it was about time they looked at the other symbols, so they gathered their stuff and headed toward the car. Before they got in the car, Rachel kneeled at Elizabeth's cross and paid her respects. Once she had gotten in, Robert couldn't contain his curiosity. "Did you know Elizabeth?" he asked.

"We were friends as kids, we grew apart once we graduated high school though. It's tragic what happened to her. I'm very sorry for your loss by the way," she replied, with a solemn look. Robert said nothing, but grunted in response.

The third symbol was in a corn field on the edge of town. It was similar to the first two, but again had different shaping to the fine details, this one with trapezoid shapes. The weird thing here, however, was that there were several hundred crows sat in a circle around it. They didn't even fly off as they approached.

"I told you animals were acting weird," Rachel said, breaking the eerie silence.

"Well yeah, I can definitely see that now," Rob replied, very concerned about the current situation.

"Permission to scare them off Rob?" Gabriel requested, visibly irked by what was currently happening.

"Go for it," he responded, a little relieved. Gabriel quickly ran toward them waving his arms around in the air, but they didn't react. After a couple more times he drew his gun and looked at Robert silently asking for permission. Rob merely just nodded at him with a grin. Gabriel shot three rounds at the ground near the horde of birds. At first the only reaction was a yelp from Rachel, but after the third shot they all started frantically cawing and flying into the air. Gabe looked back with a green and pumped his fists into the air, but behind him the birds had not fled. They were flying in a giant circle in the air above the symbol, and the electricity in the air seemed to be crackling between them.. Noticing the look on Robert and Rachel's faces, he turned around and stared in awe. The trio decided to quickly take pictures of the symbol and the area before leaving.

They spent some time going symbol after symbol, each in its own remote location, and each with slightly different styles to the details, but all with the same eye in the middle. Robert could actually kind of see how you'd be able to notice several from a high vantage point such as a drone. After they'd seen six more symbols, and double checking the one at the football field, Rachel said they only had one left, the ninth one, towards the middle of town.